I collected the latest edition of THE NUGGET (N299) from the printer today, and I hope to post it out to members of Wargame Developments on Tuesday. (I would have posted it on Monday, but it is May Bank Holiday and the Post Office is shut.)

IMPORTANT: Please note that this is the eighth issue of THE NUGGET to be published for the 2016-2017 subscription year, and that members who have not already re-subscribed can still do so if they want to. This can be done by visiting the relevant page on the Wargame Developments website.

THE THREE HUNDREDTH ISSUE: The next issue will be the three hundredth issue, and I know that the editor would love to make it a bumper issue. If you are a member of Wargame Developments and feel so inclined, perhaps you could send him a few lines about why you joined and how much you think that your wargaming has benefited from your membership.

The April issue of MINIATURE WARGAMES magazine was delivered just before I went to SALUTE2017 and I have only just managed to have a long and serious look at it.

The articles included in this issue are:

Welcome (i.e. the editorial) by John Treadaway

Forward observer

Send three and fourpence: Bagging Boris: A ‘Black Ops’ scenario by Conrad Kinch

Hostage to Fortune: A short medieval skirmish scenario by Chris Jarvis

Pursuit after Kunersdorf: A Seven Years War skirmish game for two players … and two figures by Arthur Harman

(Well) Behind the lines: Ideas for using support and supply vehicles and troops by Philip Andrews

Darker Horizons

Fantasy Facts

Cloudships of Mars: Small scale Victorian air-to-air combat in Martian skies by John Treadaway

The African Princesses: How to paint 19th century female African royalty by Kevin Dallimore

Wargaming my wayby Robin Miles

Recce

Toupee Trees: The continuing tales of a wargames widow by Diane Sutherland

Club Directory

Although I did not find this issue as entertaining as the last, there were still some good articles that made my continued purchase of this magazine worthwhile. Of particular interest were Conrad Kinch’s Send three and fourpence was as usual good value for money, and Arthur Harman’s Pursuit after Kunersdorf shows just what can be achieved in the realm of small scale game design with a bit of thought and ingenuity. I even enjoyed the Cloudships of Mars article, having owned several of the SPACE 1889 books and products in the past. I do, however, still have concerns about whether or not I will renew my subscription the next time it is due. John Treadaway is quite unequivocal in his editorial about his vision for the future. He states that ‘Whilst I’ve Kreigspieled (sic) and role-played as much as I ever wanted to (and still do) wargaming is, for me at least, primarily a feast for the eyes: the figures and scenery are, I think, far more important than even the period and I want this magazine to reflect the world of painted toy soldiers in all its splendour wherever possible.’

Whilst I agree that one of the major attractions that wargaming has for me is its aesthetic side, I’d always prefer to fight a well designed wargame with averagely painted figures on reasonable terrain than a poorly designed one where the figures have ‘splendid brush work‘ and move across ‘great terrain‘. I am just concerned that if the latter is going to be the norm on the pages of Miniature Wargames, it and I will be parting company in the near future.

The editor of THE NUGGET sent the latest issue of the journal to me a couple of days ago, and I am taking it to the printer this morning. With luck this will mean that it will be printed and posted out to members of Wargame Developments by the next weekend.

IMPORTANT: Please note that this is the eighth issue of THE NUGGET to be published for the 2016-2017 subscription year, and that members who have not already re-subscribed can still do so if they want to. This can be done by visiting the relevant page on the Wargame Developments website.

THE THREE HUNDREDTH ISSUE: The next issue will be the three hundredth issue, and I know that the editor would love to make it a bumper issue. If you are a member of Wargame Developments and feel so inclined, perhaps you could send him a few lines about why you joined and how much you think that your wargaming has benefited from your membership.

One of the things that I was particularly interested in seeing at SALUTE2017 was TRAVEL BATTLE, the latest offering from Perry Miniatures. It is being sold as a complete wargame in a box that is suitable for wargamers who are on the move for work, on holiday, or who don’t have a lot of space and/or time. As it uses a gridded tabletop, I was determined to at least have a look at a copy.

The stand was being staffed by both Alan and Michael Perry …

… who seemed to be surrounded by loads of stock whilst being inundated by customers!

Luckily they had a painted example of the game on show …

… and this gave me a flavour of what was inside the box. I eventually managed to get to speak to both of the Perry brothers, and they very kindly gave me a copy of the game to review … only the second time that I have ever been given a review copy of anything related to wargaming.

THE BOX

The box the game comes in is made of corrugated card and measures approximately 38cms x 29cms x 6.6cms (15″ x 11.5″ x 2.5″). It has a plastic carrying handle fixed to the top side of the box.

The box top is decorated with a Napoleonic battle scene that features British and French cavalry and a couple of British Riflemen …

… whilst the back is illustrated by photographs of the games’s components and a breakdown of the contents.

On opening the box, the first thing that one sees is a layer of black foam packaging that is designed to ensure that the game is secure when it is packed away and – more importantly – being carried.

Once this is removed it becomes apparent that the whole game is designed to be stored in an inner foam box, which looks quite substantial and should ensure that the components do not get damaged in transit.

The figures are plastic and the foot figures are approximately 8mm high. The detail on them is acceptable, but no doubt will not meet the exacting standards of some wargamers.

THE RULES AND GUIDE BOOK

The first two pages of the book explain:

The six troop types used in the rules

How to organise the troops into brigades

How to assemble fix the figures to their bases

The Sequence of Play

The centre pages cover:

How to set up the game

Movement

Artillery Fire

The next two pages explain:

The rules for Fighting

How to Rally troops

How to show that your troops are in Square

The victory conditions

How to paint your armies

The back cover explains how to paint the terrain …

… and the origins of the game. (It was conceived and designed by Michael Perry back in the early 1990s.)

PROS AND CONS

I really do like the concept behind this game. It is exactly the sort of game that I would have liked to have designed. The components seem to be robust, and the whole thing should provide many hours of fun to anyone who owns a copy BUT I do have several reservations about the game. These are:

I think that an American Civil War version would have had greater sales potential (I understand that this might be a possibility if this game sells well).

I think that the figures should have been larger. 10mm is any already widely used figure size, and if the figures in this game had been just 2mm taller it would have enabled them to be used in other games and/or players could have expanded their armies with different figures.

I am not that keen on the fact that the terrain is fixed and that I am not able to move the woods, buildings, and hills. This may sound very picky but it is something that I think might have made the game even more saleable.

The rules allow diagonal movement on a squared grid … which is something that I have come to dislike over recent years. Likewise artillery can fire on diagonals at no cost to their range.

That all might sound very negative, but I think that with a little extra thought this could have been an exceptionally good game that a lot of people would have bought and used … and that had the potential for considerable expansion.

There – however – lots of pluses as well as these minuses, and to my mind they are:

It is a very simple set of rules to use and learn. As I know from designing and using my own PORTABLE WARGAME rules, there is a lot of subtlety to be found in wargames that have simple rules.

The rules are very playable and easy to understand. I showed them to my wife (who is no wargamer and not a great lover of boardgames other than MONOPOLY), and she understood them without any problem.

I can see myself using the terrain boards for all sorts of mini-campaign battles, but probably using 6mm or 10mm figures instead of the ones that come with the game.

The terrain items (e.g. the houses) can be used with other wargames fought using small-scale figures. (I placed some 6mm figures next to the buildings and they did not look out of place alongside them.)

The design of the woods provides a neat and simple to the age-old problem of how to conceal units in wooded areas. Simply, you make the wood hollow, with a removeable canopy.

The whole package (including the foam lining) will ensure that the game components will survive the rigours of travel … just as long as my wife doesn’t see me sneaking the box into the luggage on our next cruise!

Just looking at the game as I laid the pieces out to photograph them made me want to assemble the figures and bases and to start playing … but probably an imagi-nation campaign rather than a proper historical one.

So I am I happy with this game?

The answer is a resounding ‘YES‘ … but I will probably use my own rules rather than the ones that come with the game.

One last thing; cost. I have heard and read several comments about the cost of this game. True, it is £50.00 … but this is not much more than the cost of four packs of Foundry Napoleonic figures, so it it not that ridiculously expensive for what you get. As someone who has many hundreds of pounds-worth of unpainted metal figures, £50.00 for a game that I can and will use sounds not only very reasonable, but might actually turned out to be a sensible and economical choice.

On Saturday I made my first visit to SALUTE for five years. I had no great expectations as to what I would find when I got there, having been somewhat disappointed on my last two visits. In fact it turned out to be much better than I had hoped it would be, as I think the following photo report will show.
The closure of the Custom House station on the DLR (Docklands Light Railway) did not cause any problems for those of us attending SALUTE. In fact the alternative station we had to use (Prince Regent) was actually more convenient as it was less far to walk from the station to the venue inside the ExCel Centre. The only downside to the journey was the fact that it was raining as we arrived at Prince Regent.

The entrance to SALUTE was easy to find and marshals from the South London Warlords were on hand to check you in …

… and direct you to the queue to go in.

This looks far more horrendous than it actually was, and the queue moved forward at a slow but steady pace. Considering how long it was when I joined it at 9.55am, the fact that it only took thirty minutes for me to get in seemed not too unreasonable.

Starting in the corner to the left of the entrance, I made my way around each of the games that was on show. (Please note that not all of the games shown in following photographs were easy to identify from their description in the Show Guide, and therefore may not have a club, society, group, or company attribution or a caption. These are indicated by a ‘?‘, and if I do manage to identify them at a later date, I will add an attribution.)

Simple Miniature Games: Maulifaux

?

Simple Miniature Games: Batman

Gentlemens Wargames Parlour: Left hand down a bit (or Sink HMS Eagle)This game (set during the Very British Civil War period) featured some interesting conversions of model battleships …

… and a rather neat model of an aircraft carrier.

Warlord Wargamers: English Civil War

Dalauppror: Fort Mosquito 1654This was a battle between Swedish and Dutch colonial troops in mid-17th century Delaware …